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A new edition of HârnMaster

·1315 words·7 mins
Table of Contents
The cover of the standard edition of the new HarnMaster Kethira RPG book.

I’m a long-time fan of the RPG setting called Hârn. I bought it back in 1983 and for a very long time I was a subscriber of HârnQuest, a quarterly publication. I am proud to say that my name is in HârnLore 21 (see image below). I own almost everything published for Hârn2 and I’ve played HârnMaster versions 1 to 3, I was even a beta tester for HârnMaster 3. But it has been a couple of decades since we played in Hârn and since I’ve considered HârnMaster as a system to run.

A picture of the Letterdemain section of HarnLore 2 where the names of the winner and runners-up are listed, with mine in there.

I recently learned that a new edition of HârnMaster was coming out3, and after looking a bit more into it, I found out that the new version was coming out that very day! It was an instant buy for me. I’ve been reading the PDF since, and I am very enthusiastic about this new edition.

HârnMaster’s Previous Editions #

Hârn (1983) and HârnMaster (1986) were both created by N. Robin Crossby. He worked at Columbia Games when they first published those products (they were based in Canada at the time). Over the years, and with various editions of HârnMaster, they grew apart. I don’t know the details, and the reasons are not important in any case. Robin published his own version of HârnMaster, called HârnMaster Gold (HMG) a few years after HârnMaster 3 (HM3) first came out. HârnMaster Gold is much more detailed than HM3. I suspect that Robin wanted to go in one direction with HârnMaster (a more detailed version) while Columbia Games wanted to go in another (a ‘simpler’ version), and that may have contributed to the split. In any case, Robin created a new company, Kelestia Productions, to publish HârnMaster Gold and new material for the world in which Hârn is located.

Sadly, Robin died in 2008, but his legacy lives on and Kelestia Productions still publishes quality products, the latest of which is HârnMaster: Roleplaying in the World of Kèthîra, a totally new version of HârnMaster that is neither HMG nor HM3, but its own new take on a roleplaying game aligned to use with the rich and detailed world of Kèthîra (which Hârn is a part of).

HârnMaster Kèthîra #

HârnMaster: Roleplaying in the World of Kèthîra, or HârnMaster Kèthîra for short (MHK for even shorter) is still in the tradition of HârnMaster: it is a classless, level-less, skill-based game that uses a D100 skill mechanic with four levels of success4. It is a gorgeous book of 436 full-colour pages with a great layout. It has a 3-page index, a two-page glossary of terms, beautiful full-page colour maps of the Venarîvè region (of which Hârn is a part) for languages, vegetation types, seafaring (with sea currents, wind and weather patterns), and the locations of Godstones, and half-page colour maps for the climate zones, daylight hours, and the major pantheons, as well as a large number of smaller maps and great colour illustrations throughout the book.

The book is composed of eight chapters and three appendices. The chapters are

  1. Hârn and the World of Kèthîra: overview of Kèthîra and the Venârivè region, with a paragraph on each area.
  2. Character: how to generate a player character, including birth (birthplace, folk, sunsign), family (society, social class and parents’ occupation) and persona (characteristics, occupation, skills, and standing).
  3. Skills: how skills work and a description of each one, often with detailed rules associated with them (for example ‘potions,’ which are mundane and not to be confused with magical elixirs, and which are made with the skill herblore are detailed here).
  4. Possessions: equipment, including armour and weapons, with illustrations for each.
  5. Adventures: social interactions (called influence), travel (including seafaring, trekking and using gates), combat, and trauma (both physical and mental and how to recover from both).
  6. The Mysteries: arcane mysteries (spellcasters, called Shek-Pvâr, including over 200 spells), arcane talents (innate abilities, previously called psionics in other editions), alchemy (detailed rules for producing and using magical elixirs, including 35 detailed elixirs), divination (including astrology, runecraft and tarotry), astral mysteries (astral travel and shamanism), and divine mysteries (divine grace, pantheons, religions, and ritual summoning).
  7. Bestiary: animals, elementals, folks, gargun (Hârn’s orcs), ivashu (a special category of creatures), morvrins (undeads), mythic creatures (dragons, gryphons, etc.), and spirits.
  8. Campaigns: game elements, types of campaigns, adventures, encounter tables, quick NPCs, character development, etc.

The three appendices are

  1. Regions: each realm of Venârivè has a table with the type of society (feudal, imperial, tribal, etc.), the pantheon, and the main languages, along with random generation and sub-tables when needed (tribal groups on Hârn, Trierzi dialects, etc.).
  2. Languages: language families, scholarly languages, scripts, mutual intelligibility of dialects, etc.
  3. Character Details: random tables for added details like complexion, hair colour, eye colour, build, handedness, etc.

Still reading and liking what I see #

I haven’t had time to read the whole thing yet, but I really like what I have seen so far. For one thing, it’s a joy to revisit Hârn after about 20 years, what a great setting. I’ll make other posts about the various sections of HârnMaster Kèthîra in more detail but for now I’ll just mention, haphazardly, things that I liked while reading. I really like the skill system, and all the nuances it includes. I like the missile rules where you can have both direct and volley attacks. I like that there are detailed alchemical rules and really like the “imbibing roll” as it is similar to my home-brewed (pun intended) alchemical rules that I created for HârnMaster (HM1) back in the day. I like the inclusion of rules for social interactions (that don’t prevent role-playing), since they are so important in a Hârn campaign. I also like the added mental attributes to support these. I like the inclusion of rules for the whole Venârivè region in the game as it expands the possibilities for campaigns. I like the Zone Die mechanic and how it ties in with the reach of a weapon. I could go on and on!

So I am very exited about this new system. Kelestia Productions released an auto-calculating character sheet, a campaign calendar and a weapon summary. Soon they will release a GM kit which will include a mini-campaign set in the Emélrenè and Hârn regions. There is also an active development of a FoundryVTT5 system for HârnMaster Kèthîra that should be released in a few months.

For more information and resources (as I make them), see the HMK resource page.

  1. I was a runner-up in the contest to find a name for the then-called “Letters” section of HarnLore, where questions were answered (they came in the form of letters, younger readers might have to look that up… There was no Internet back then!). My proposed title was “The Kvikîr’s Query.” Kvikîr is a term used by the Shek-Pvâr (the mages) referring to “ordinary folk.” The winning title was “Letterdemain,” a play on Legerdemain. ↩︎

  2. I don’t have everything, and I certainly don’t have all the various reprints of the same material that Columbia Games produce on a regular basis… ↩︎

  3. A new version that was not an iteration on HârnMaster 3 that is. There was a Kickstarter for a “new” edition of HârnMaster (3.5.2?) in 2020, but I was not interested in that. ↩︎

  4. As with all versions of HârnMaster, the skill roll can produce four results: Critical Failure (CF), Failure (F), Success (S), and Critical Success (CS). Roll below or equal to your skill Mastery Level (ML) and it’s a success; otherwise it’s a failure. If the digit die is either ‘0’ or ‘5’ then it’s a critical (either CS or CF depending on whether the roll succeeded or failed). So there is a 20% chance of a critical, and the ratio of CS to CF is proportional to your ML. Great and very simple system. ↩︎

  5. It is not developed by KP but by the same developer who made the current HM3 system for FoundryVTT. ↩︎